We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Dr. Michael Robillard is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oxford working on the ethics of counter-terrorism. He has also written on the ethics of autonomous weapons, military recruitment, veteran moral injury, and war and its relation to future generations. Michael is an Iraq War veteran, United States Military Academy graduate, and Airborne Range
Our best and brightest, with the most impressive resumes and degrees, not the “decadent, lazy, spoiled, whatever” of Middle America ran up $20 trillion in national debt. Our best failed over a decade to achieve 3 percent economic growth. The supposedly smartest warped the health care system. The brightest could not translate overseas interventions into a strategic or cost-to-benefit advantage. The anointed eroded the border. The most knowledgeable gave us state nullification of federal law. The purportedly most ethical weaponized the IRS, the FISA courts, the DOJ, and the FBI, undermined the idea of free-speech in the university, and politicized everything from the eroding NFL to the increasingly irrelevant Oscars...
FISA-gate may become a more worrisome scandal than either Watergate or Iran-Contra. Why? Because our defense against government wrongdoing — the press — is defending such actions, not uncovering them. Liberal and progressive voices are excusing, not airing, the excesses of the DOJ and FBI. Apparently, weaponizing government agencies to stop a detested Donald Trump by any means necessary is not really considered a crime.
" Ms Schaefer, who teaches performance art to those less gifted than herself, is a recipient of the Boston ICA’s 2015 Foster Prize, and has been described by the ICA’s senior curator as “amazing,” “compelling” and yet inexplicably “underfunded.”"
FBI and DOJ Officials Broke The Law And Tried To Decide The Election - an Annotated Timeline(h/t reader)
Two points were missed there. First, the info that Carter Page was an FBI agent/spy, and, second, the fact that Loretta Lynch has no grandkids to discuss on the tarmac.
I’m basically a kid. Sure I’m 55 going on 56, and I am starting to feel the aches and pains which we associate with age. Herniated and bulging discs make moving difficult sometimes. I have to watch what I eat and work out regularly to keep weight off. I miss the days of eating as much as I want, and as indiscriminately as I did. Bags of chips, tubs of ice cream, a whole pizza. Those days are memories. But one thing keeps me young. Sports. I love sports of all kinds.
I played soccer and beach volleyball in my youth, but really enjoyed being team statistician for basketball. I love numbers, and sports are about numbers. Sabermetrics got me back into baseball after all the scandals and negative stories of the 80's and 90's caused me to lose interest. When you get right down to it, sports are a great combination of the things I love. Physical activity, competition, and data.
But one sport has always been my favorite. Football. Never played it, always loved it. Especially one team in particular, where the team is mostly religion.
The city I grew up in has a rich history, and is a great place to visit. Even after my family moved when I was 10, I continued to love the city and its teams. Starting my career, I landed in New York City, making it nearly impossible to get (at least unbiased) sports information. I then married into a family of New York sports fans. I affectionately call ours a mixed marriage. Believe me, there is no love lost between New York and Philadelphia. Twice a year, at least, my wife and I have difficult days. I have had to root for her (not her team, just her happiness) in the Super Bowl twice. Very painful....but it’s what we do.
So I am fully aware of her pain this past weekend. I did not ask her to root for my team, and I know she struggled. Marriages have their rocky moments. Pun intended.
Let’s put it this way: if this sort of thing had gone on under President Trump or even George W. Bush, the Times would have announced the news in front-page headlines so large it would have taken two strong men just to carry the letters to the press room. An enormous collection of Times reportage on the subject—with a black cover and some title like “The Path to Tyranny”—would have been on the bookstore shelves within the month.
When the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles meet Sunday for the Super Bowl, they'll play inside the newly completed U.S. Bank Stadium near downtown Minneapolis. The $1.1 billion stadium was built with almost $500 million from state and local taxpayers, with the city paying an additional $7.5 million each year for operations and maintenance.
Looks like a Dayquil day for Bird Dog. How about you? Maybe even a Nyquil nap later. Good day to feel lousy. Mrs. BD going to ballet and luncheon with a friend, and I'll organize a pile of paperwork. Or not.
... all these insiders were playing the careerist odds. What we view as reprehensible behavior, they at the time considered wise investments that would earn rewards with an ascendant President Hillary Clinton.
Sara Carter is reporting that agents have accused McCabe of pressuring them to change the information on their FBI witness interrogation forms. If true, this will be the greatest level of corruption ever demonstrated at the top of the FBI, surpassing even their coverups for Whitey Bulger. This is perjury, and suborning of perjury.
Carter says that this is the evidence that was shown to Wray just yesterday, leading to McCabe’s immediate removal from his position. If Sara Carter is correct, McCabe could be charged with crimes leading to 20 years in a federal prison.
The sun 
Love vs. Lust: 
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Looks like a Dayquil day for Bird Dog. How about you? Maybe even a Nyquil nap later. Good day to feel lousy. Mrs. BD going to ballet and luncheon with a friend, and I'll organize a pile of paperwork. Or not.
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